Wednesday, July 4, 2012

New Car: 2013 McLaren MP4-12C Spider

How do you follow something that produces 616 hp, weighs a shade under 3200 pounds, sprints from a dead halt to 60 in 2.9 seconds, tops out at 207 mph, and is the most well-mannered supercar in the world? Take the roof off the thing. Witness the MP4-12C’s first offspring, the 2013 McLaren MP4-12C Spider. The car will make its real-world debut at events surrounding this August’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance.

We now know what it took to effect the change: not much. The Spider weighs a mere 88 pounds more than the coupe—putting it around 3250 pounds—in large part, McLaren says, because the coupe that debuted nearly three years ago was originally designed as an open-topped car. Thus, the MP4-12C’s 165-pound carbon-fiber passenger cell required no further reinforcement. The only strengthening of note was applied to the steel structure embedded in each buttress for rollover protection. (As to those buttresses: They look slightly bizarre. We’re thinking we won’t care once we slide behind the wheel, though.)

The retractable hardtop—made from fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and not carbon as was long speculated—can be operated while the car is traveling at speeds at or below 19 mph. A motorized window sits behind the two occupants; it can be utilized as a windscreen when the roof is off and can be lowered while the top is up, allowing unfettered aural access to the 12C’s magical twin-turbo V-8.

The M838T 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-8 packs the same uprated 616 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque found in the revised-for-2013 MP4 coupe. (Unlike most mid-engined droptop supercars, McLaren has managed to keep its eight-cylinder beast on display with a glass window incorporated into the rear deck.) The Graziano-sourced seven-speed dual-clutch automatic is upgraded this year to accommodate the increase in power; as with the coupe, there will be no manual transmission on offer. McLaren says acceleration will essentially be on par with the coupe’s—keeping pace to 60 mph but adding a tenth or two at speeds above 100 mph—and that top speed will drop by 3 mph, to 204.